Indigo: The Saving Bailey Trilogy #2 (13 page)

Cai spins once, and then falls flat on his back like you see in the movies—it’s unreal. Spencer jumps on top of him, digging his elbow deep into his ribcage.

“Fuck off, dude!” Cai coughs, trying to get away. “Leave me alone.”

“Like you left my girlfriend alone when she told you to?”

Cai now looks in my direction and rolls his eyes, blood from his nose gushing over his lips and chin. “She told me she had a boyfriend.” He smiles with blood red teeth. “Okay, you want to go, pretty boy? Then let’s go. You’ll be on your ass choking blood before you can even blink.”

Cai digs his nails into Spencer’s upper arms and rolls with him until he is the one on top. Straddling him, Cai directs a punch at Spencer’s face. His lips are forced apart, exposing perfect white teeth as Cai slams his fist into his mouth over and over again.

Spencer doesn’t fight back. No emotions. No resistance. Just compliance. A bag of bones, blood, and organs.

“Stop!”
I scream, even though I know that didn’t work before.

I slide back up the wall and break into a run. When I reach them, Spencer is curled up in a fetal position, and Cai’s eyes are wild as he repeatedly drives a fist into his stomach.

“Bailey, get away!” Spencer screams.
“RUN!”

Last time somebody told me to run, they ended up in prison
. I stay my ground.

Spencer manages to gain his feet.

Bloody fireworks paint his face. I can hold back no longer. “Touch my boyfriend one more fucking time,” I snarl at Cai, swinging at his throat and cutting off his air and voice at the same time, “AND I WILL MURDER YOU!”

Cai clutches his throat and chokes out threats, the punch giving Spencer just enough time to recuperate.

Cai steadies himself. He looks even more menacing now that I’ve taken a swing at him.

“Bailey, get in the truck!” Spencer yells, throwing his arm at me, but I freeze as Cai’s fist swings around in a wide arc and collides with the right side of my face, knocking me off my feet.

I cry out from the sudden change of gravity.

“Whore!” Cai says, spitting on me as he walks away.

Blood fills my mouth, a tang as familiar as orange juice. The right side of my head swells from the blow, and I push both my hands against it to stop the skin from rising.

Spencer, ignoring Cai’s threats to shank him, drops beside me. “I should have made you spend the night.”

I sit up and press his hand against my burning cheek. “No, don’t blame yourself,” I beg him. “Please don’t blame yourself.”

“You’re bleeding.” He thumbs a drop of blood at the corner of my mouth.

“So are you,” I say.

So are you—because of me. In prison, bleeding, abusive - because of me. This is different. Not the taste of blood in my mouth, but the wind blowing against my half-naked body, the orange glow of the parking lot and this dryness in my throat like I have swallowed cotton balls.

“He got you good,” Spencer says.

Got me good. April fools, I drugged you and ripped your clothes off. Beat the crap out of you and your boyfriend. Cai, you sly dog—
you got me good
.

“He did,” I agree. “But I’ll be okay…” My voice quivers at the end of my sentence and I give over in fresh tears.

“I’ll find that guy, someday,” Spencer says, “and I’ll kill him.” He wraps an arm below my shoulders and another under my knees, and lifts me off the ground.

I bury my face in his pecks—the only pecks I wish I had seen tonight.

“Come on,” he says, “let’s get you away from here.”

“Where are you taking me?” I ask. “Home?”

“Your home away from home. I’ll call your mom and let her know where you are.”

Nestled in his strong arms, he carries me to his truck and settles me in the backseat with a blanket he uses for moving furniture to and from Goodwill. I turn and face the seats in shame.

“I need to think. We can talk about this when we get to my house,” he says. “Okay?”

I nod my head.

Allowing Spencer to ruminate on tonight, I close my eyes and rest. The tires spitting out gravel and the radio playing nothing but commercials relaxes me. We’re the only ones on the road tonight and if anyone were to join us, I feel I would crumble under their presence, as if they could see right through Spencer’s truck at the monstrosity I’ve become.
A molested, wounded girl.

The sun is rising over the treetops when we pull into the driveway. Spencer cuts the engine and looks over the seats at me. I blink to show him I’m awake. “Can you walk?”

I blink again.

He gets out, opens the back driver side door, picks me up, and takes me into the house. He lays me on his bed and collapses on the carpet, worn thin from Cai’s beating. “What happened after he ripped your clothes off?”

I crawl to the edge of the bed and show him my wrists. “He held me down…and…” I can’t get the words out.

Spencer sits up and pushes the blanket off my shoulders. He looks me over tentatively, not missing so much as an inch of skin. His fingers drag across my collar bone and travel down to my breast over a bright purple bruise.

“Did he
rape
you?”

“I can’t remember. I don’t even know how I got
this
bruise,” I say. “He must have hit me…”

Spencer sits down next to me on the bed; draping the blanket over both of us, he puts his arm around my waist and leans his head against mine.

“You break my heart,” he says. “Not just break it, you splinter it, Bailey. It hurts so bad for you right now. I’m scared it might implode inside of me.”

I wrap my arms around him, pressing close. “I love you,” I whisper.

“I love you, too,” he says, his eyes polished by his tears. “I will make it okay again.”

I push his head to my chest. “Hear that? Feel that?” I say.
“It’s your love keeping me alive.”

Last night, if Clad had been the one at Indigo, he would have ripped Cai to shreds. Not that Spencer didn’t give it his all, but sometimes I feel shorthanded choosing Spencer over Clad. One could call it a choice anyway; however, it is really circumstances that have backed me into this decision.

Run,
he said.
Run from me and everything, run away from this place and live.

He gave me life by threatening to take it away and there are times I seriously wonder if that was a loving sacrifice or a sugar-coated death threat.

Also, Spencer’s arms call to me in a way that Clad’s never could. No, even if Clad weren’t in prison, I would choose Spencer over him because he is my Singer Boy, and now Clad is my Gun Boy. I would choose the gift of vocals over Clad’s gun
any day
.

I fell asleep in Spencer’s clothes, in his bed, completely wrapped up in everything that is him. The drug, whatever it was—probably roofers—put me to sleep as it slowly left my system.

I wake up, the right side of my face freezing and sore. I can’t open my eye because it’s swollen shut. I try to sit up, but someone pushes me back down. I try to pull my hands out from underneath Spencer’s heavy comforter but they are stuck. Not stuck—being held down. I feel the pain in my wrists from last night and gasp.
Cai is on top of me again
.

A forced cry rises from my throat.
“Please stop!”

“It’s okay, Bailey, he’s gone. He isn’t going to hurt you again,” says Sarah.

I sit up and free my hands from the covers. An ice pack falls into my lap, I grab for it but Sarah takes my hands in hers. She sees the bruises before I can think to hide them.

“It’s okay,” she says, holding my hands. Crying softly, she turns her head away from me like I have halitosis or something.

“Sarah?” I say. “Are you all right?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Don’t cry. I know you’re crying. I’m okay,
honest
.”

“You’re so brave,” she says.

Just brave?
What happened to being strong?
Did Cai take that away from me, did he take away my strength when he had his way with me? When he was done, was my bravery all that could be salvaged?

“Spencer asked me to talk to you… I’m not good at this kind of thing, so I’m just going to come right out and say it…Spencer told me what happened last night,” Sarah says. “Did the boy—”

“
Man
,” I interrupt.

“Did he rape you? What can you remember?” she asks. “Spencer wants you to go to a doctor. He wants to be sure you’re okay.”

“Jesus,” I exhale. “I’m
not
going to a doctor, that would just be more traumatic.”

“Come to think of it, you have a point there,” she lee-ways with me. “But you have to try and remember - even if you don’t want to.”

“I think I was blacked out…” I close my eyes and try to dig up the memory that my subconscious has tried so hard to bury away.

“Ella,” I say, “Ella walked into the bathroom…” It starts to come to me, but I have to fight against the desire to suppress it.

“Let it come,” Sarah coaxes me.

“His hand was…” I put my head in my palms. “Forget it, I don’t remember.”

“Yes, you do! You have to tell me.”

“No, really, I was too drugged to remember it all…I
think
he just ripped my clothes off but I can’t be positive…” I say. “I’m sorry, I wish I could remember.”
Not really
. “His shorts were still on…”

“Then maybe he didn’t,” Sarah says with a small, eye-crinkling smile.

“But that doesn’t change what happened—and something
did
happen. Someone put their hands on me before Spencer and now I’m damaged goods,” I say. “Who wants damaged goods?”

“You worry that Spencer will think you’re damaged?” she asks incredulously.

“Well, I am, aren’t I?” I say. “I guess I’m still a virgin but God, it ain’t the same. Not. At. All.”

“Spencer’s totally wrapped up in you and
nothing
could ever change that, especially not some guy who took advantage of you.”

I throw my arms around her and she falls backward a little from my unexpected embrace. “Thank you, Sarah,” I say into her hair, which is down and wavy, not pulled back in the ponytail that makes her look perpetually angry.

She hugs me back with equal verve. “You’re so welcome.”

I laugh and wipe away her tears with the corner of my blanket—if only bad memories could be wiped away as easily as the tears from her face.
Just the swipe of a hand and, like magic, you’re granted a clean memory.

I notice for the first time that Sarah resembles her mother. Today she looks younger than usual, as if her severe ponytail had made her deceptively old.

“Should we let Spencer in, now?”

Sarah nods.

“Spencer, you can come in!” we yell in unison.

He bursts through the door like he’d been standing there the whole time. “’Bout time you girls stopped crying, felt like I was going to a funeral!” He chuckles. “Okay, my turn to be alone with Bailey. You’re just so popular we have to fight for your attention.”

“Okay, I’m going. Hope you feel better soon,” Sarah says, leaving Spencer and I alone.

“I assume he didn’t…”

“No. And can we leave it at that? If we keep bringing it up then it will become a part of me—it will only add to the darkness in my head.”

“Yes, and just one more thing,” he says raising his finger, “someday, I’m going to show you real love.”

“Can’t wait till then,” I say.

“I have something to show you. Can we go to the park?”

“Oh…I don’t think we should… the birds, the tree…it wouldn’t be good for me.”

“That’s exactly why I want you to go. And trust me, it
will
be good for you.”

“Dressed like this?”

“It’s not like anyone’s going to see you,” he says.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go.”

We get up from the bed, and I follow him to the front door. “Hop on my back,” he says.

Holding onto his shoulders, I leap onto his back and he grabs my legs. I wrap my arms around his neck. “Don’t drop me!” I say, as he jumps down the porch steps.

He leans back pretending to lose his balance. “Whoahhh, hold on!”

“Oh, stop it!” I giggle, squeezing his neck tighter.

“Are you trying to choke me?”

“That depends! Are you trying to drop me?”

“Nooo…” He chuckles.

“You’re supposed to be at work,” I say. We’re on the street leading to the park now, and my legs are getting sweaty from the heavy pajama pants he let me borrow. I can feel myself slipping.

“I took the day off.” He shrugs, shifting me so I won’t fall. “I’m going to stay home and take care of you.” He reaches his hand around to the back of my head and ruffles my hair.

When reach the park, Spencer crouches down and lets me off his back. We walk hand in hand, him leading me to the tree stump. Nestled in a mound of dirt, a grey tombstone and a bouquet of flowers mark the birds’ burial site. The stone is carved in the shape of a heart, two doves encircling it- their wings spread out as if they are about to take flight.

“And look here,” Spencer says taking my hand again. A little ways off from the gravesite is a newly planted tree, an oak rising from the ground young and healthy. He takes me back to the stump and sits down, pulling me onto his lap. “Do you like it?”

“It’s beautiful,” I say. “The flowers, the stone, the tree—all of it.”

“Someday, the tree will be as large as ours was and then our children can lie beneath it, watching the clouds and sun like we used to,” he says, rocking me.

Just when I think I can go no further, Spencer saves me by showing me there is life. Life can flourish because death has taken place. Now, I think of how Clad tried to save me by pointing a gun to my head, threatening to take my life.
Funny how a few flowers and a baby tree can have the same effect.

“What are you thinking about?” Spencer asks pivoting his head so that our eyes meet.

“About how this is all I ever want and need,” I lie.

“I was thinking,” he says, “maybe you shouldn’t visit Clad, anymore. Maybe you should cut him off.”

“We’ve been thinking the same thing,” I say.

“I mean, he did what he had to, right? He kept you from killing all those people, but that’s where it ends. How could you ever love him the same way again? How could
he
love
you
the same way?”